Gōng xǐ fā cái! Xīn nián kuài lè! Happy Chinese New Year! We had a low key celebration this year. We started out by celebrating with three of our adoption friends - we met for storytime at Barnes & Noble and lunch at Nordstrom's Cafe. (it's never too early to learn about the joys of lunch with your girlfriends at Nordstrom's!) All four girls were adopted from China and Mara met each of their moms online during the wait.
And while we didn't make it downtown for the Chinese New Year parade this year (Hannah and Chris were too busy cheering on the Packers in the Super Bowl!), we did go to the celebration at Fair Oaks Mall over the weekend. Hannah LOVED watching the dragon & lion dances - she kept pointing at them to make sure we were watching too, blowing kisses to the dragon, and was the most enthusiastic clapper in the crowd!
One Year
One year ago today, Mara got the call from our adoption agency. Even though we weren't expecting it for another few months, they had our referral. Xi Xue Li from Kunming, Yunnan, China. Chris came home (while Mara started calling everyone with the news) and we drove right over to our agency. And, there in the lobby, we saw her face for the first time. She was beautiful. And all of a sudden, after four years of waiting, we were about to really be parents. FINALLY.
Today? Today we made Knuffle Bunny ears at Borders storytime. Life is very very good.
Snow Days
After last year's record snow storms, it's hard to believe that it took until last week to get our first big snow of the year. And, by last year's standards, it's hard to even count 7 inches of snow as a big storm. But it made national news because of the timing (lots of our friends had 6+ hour commutes home...luckily, Chris came home at lunch so he was good, but many of our friends who spent 10 or 11 hours on their normally 20 minute commute didn't fare as well) and it was Hannah's first chance to go sledding. Her verdict? Not such a fan. I take that back - she liked the middle part of sledding. Being pulled (or, in the case of when Mommy took her, pushed) up the hill in her sled? Sort of boring. The end part, where she landed face first in the snow every time? DEFINITELY not a fan. But the middle part - the two seconds of the hill where she was going down - that was fine. And because we're GREAT parents we tried it more than once. We will spare you the video - needless to say they all end the same way - with a toddler ending up face down in the snow and one parent scooping her up while the other attempted to simultaneously avoid swearing and turn off the camera so we could help.
